Paper Airplanes are taking over Tabuga

SORRY THERE AREn´T ANY PICTURES, WE´LL PUT THEM UP SOON BUT THIS INTERNET CONNECTION IS SOOOOOO SLOW....




I know it has been awhile since I have updated this blog but life has been busy. So, while my brother is asleep on my floor after a night of playing pool to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of our favorite people in the world, I am ready to try to update all of you on my life.

Sometime in April Alex decided he was done with Tabuga and ready to challenge his newly found maturity and independence. To do this, he moved out of my one room heaven and headed south to Canoa to be a chef at a pizza and burger place. Canoa is a beautiful beach surf town. It’s pretty quiet and calm but is full of foreigners. Foreigners who own restaurants, hostals and those who are just passing through. In Canoa Alex rightfully saw a life in paradise, no shoes, no shirt, a party all the time and hopefully some cash too. .. I will get to that part.

Two and a half weeks after his big move Mom came down to visit. She was smitten over the Ecuadorian coast after her first visit and really just wanted to spend some quality time with her lovely children in a tropical paradise. Because Alex was living and working in said tropical paradise I went to Quito to pick up mom, a rental car, my friend Trinity and a recently sworn in as an official volunteer, Paul. Paul now lives about 6 kilometers from me, in a small community called Camarones. We never see eachother though because as it turns out, 6 kilometers takes about an hour due to lack of transportation. I developed Camarones as a Peace Corps site because in my mind it is the perfect Peace Corps site. It is isolated, a 3 km walk off the main highway where buses pass every hour, it’s very poor, the people are incredibly kind, open and ready to better their community, the women wash their clothes in the river, the little kids always want to hold your hand or play soccer and surrounding the community are hills covered with tropical trees. One of these hills is the other boarder of the reserve where I work. www.ceiba.org/loor.html

Anyway, Mom and I busted ass from Quito to make it to the coast. We picked up my friend Ryan, dropped off Paul with his luggage ready to start his new life and headed to Canoa. Alex was stoked to see us all. Trinity and Ryan are two of my best friends here in Ecuador and since Alex had become my side kick, they were two of his best friends as well. Ryan is from VT and Trinity from NH, so we got a lot of New England love here in EcuaLand. Mom was happy to see that Alex had a sweet little room with a porch with two hammocks looking out over palm trees on the Pacific Ocean. But, mom was not so psyched to see Alex getting exploited by his bosses, working a lot but making no money and losing weight from not eating enough due to lack of cash money flow. To put it simply, Mom, being a mom, couldn’t sleep she was so worried about her baby. To make a long story short, by the time Mom, Alex and I were heading to Quito to send Mom on her flight back to the states Alex had all of his stuff with him to return to the simple life of Alex and Andrea, minus the cameras, little dressed up chawawa, the $500 hand bags and the drama. (slipping in an American cultural reference to show that I am still in touch with where I come from, even if it’s an outdated reference). When Alex threw his bag into my room he released a sigh has he said ‘man, it feels good to be home’.

Mom and I really had a great time together. She even dared the cockroaches, rats, bats and scariest of all, out door bathroom. I had asked Mom to stay with me in Tabuga for two nights to get a little taste of my life. I wanted her to visit the reserve, hang out with the people and just live my life for two days. It was awesome. We celebrated Earth Day with little kids in Tabuga where mom wasted paper and showed kids how littering can be fun if first you fold the paper into an airplane. We visited the reserve, went to a dinner with the founders of the Ceiba Foundation and the mayor of my county, had some quality time with my Ecuadorian family and had some good laughs. The best was Mom’s fear of going to the bathroom at night.
‘Andrea honey, will you come with me to the bathroom. Here take this cute little red flashlight’.
‘Okay mom’ is how I responded but I was thinking crazy lady in my head.

So there is a light in the bathroom out back, granted it isn’t very bright because it’s in the shower on the other side of the brick wall but, it gives off enough light to see. But, for Mom, this just wasn’t enough and she made me stand there flashing the light on her with the bathroom door open. When it was my turn to go I handed mom the cute little red flashlight and told her to head back to the room, I could go to the bathroom like a normal person. But, no, Mom insisted on putting me in the spot light on the toilet because Mom was too afraid of walking back to the room (about 10 paces) by herself. I told her it was fine, no big deal, you’re okay, don’t be embarrassed. Now that it’s passed. HAHAHAAHAA mom, you’re hilarious and I love you.

After a few days in Tabuga Mom and I headed back to Canoa for two days to relax on the beach and watch the sunset with cocktails at happy hour. Mom got us all Canoa t-shirts so we could feel like real tourists and then we headed to Quito to say bubye to the beloved mommy. I left Alex and Mom in the care of Trinity in Quito and took an overnight bus back to the coast to participate in a workshop with Ceiba and to party on the beach to celebrate my Ceiba counterpart, Catherine’s birthday. Catherine and Joe are the president and vicepresident of Ceiba, they are professors at the Univeristy of Wisconsin, Madison and are just awesome smart fun people. Every year they come to Ecuador with a study abroad program. The semester includes classes in Quito, 3 weeks in the Amazon jungle, 3 weeks on the coast, 3 weeks in the Galapagos and then a 4 week personal internship project. This year I helped out as a quasi mentor to four of the students who lived in the reserve and one student who lived in Camarones . Each had their own project and I did what I could to help develop their ideas, get them contacts and make it happen. They were quite a spectacular group of people and brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the reserve. It was sad to see them go but we got a lot of stuff done and they seemed to have a good time and for the reserve it was a nice little boost to have some good volunteers helping out.

I recently had my Mid-service conference in Quito which means that one year as an official volunteers has flown by. I can only imagine this second year is going to fly by too which is scary because it’s hard to imagine leaving this place, my work and the people.
Last week Alex and I had the incredible opportunity to head into the Amazon jungle to work with the Waoroni in one of the communities that is at the end of an oil road. More about that awesome trip to come.

Now, we are back in Tabuga, living the life and getting back into our routine. Classes have started back up in the high school and this year I am teaching sex ed.

Yes or No... do women pee and have babies out of the same hole? A lot of people here believe yes, it’s all the same hole which is why women who are not virgins pee a lot louder than virgins do. I know, like I tell the kids, you can laugh, these things are weird to talk about but we can laugh with respect.

Alex only has 3 weeks until he heads back to the states. He’s going to be missed greatly. It’s not normal to have someone stay with you during your Peace Corps service but because Alex is such a great worker the reserve where I work signed a contract with him that he doesn’t make money but he does get meals when he works. Usually foreigners have to pay $400 a month to live and work at the reserve so it’s really a great deal. The contract says that he is my assistant. Imagine that life, the assistant to a volunteer, it sounds like a pretty poor existence but it works for us and life has been good to the Crosby kids here in Tabuga. Plus, Alex knows he’s made his mark, with the people here and with the work in the reserve, even in his stint as a chef in Canoa. It’s kind of like how Mom left her mark, paper airplanes are taking over Tabuga, at least now the littering can be fun.

Over Smiling All around Ecuador

Alex and I are always talking about how much we smile here. Ecuador has helped us both create an inner happiness that makes everything seem funny or atleast smile worthy. Even when something goes wrong we smile about it because if things go right here, it’s weird. Alex and I take it a little far though as we are always over smiling. The smile held an awkward second too long or done with just a little too much enthusiasm. We have created a list of examples of our over smiling moments.

1. After work it’s normal to find Alex in a towel and me in my underwear about to get in the shower. One such afternoon as Alex walked into the room, refreshed, a huge jet pack style of flying bug flew into the room. We start dodging the bug, in kind of a defensive stance. The bug chases Alex out the door and then flies back in the room which causes us to simultaneously do a home plate style dive onto the floor. We both look at each other relieved that the other was so afraid of just a bug. As soon as we make eye contact the tear drawing laughter begins. Through tears I tell Alex to stop, the laughing hurts and I might have peed a little bit on the floor. We break into another round of laughter as we look at the quarter sized wet spot on the floor.

2. ‘Oversmiling – I feel like we haven’t been doing it as much lately’ – Alex
‘You are doing it right now I can hear it in your voice, but don’t worry, I am too’ –Andrea walking behind him through the dry tropical forest.

3. Running home from work in the pouring down rain, stomping in puddles in our big rubber boots.

4. Alex blurting out English to Ecuadorian family members randomly in a too loud voice.

5. Greeting and waving to everyone, even if you have already said Buenos dias to them 5 times that day and they haven’t moved from where they were four hours ago.

6. Riding in the back of trucks

7. Walking around Tabuga with Alex’s commentary, those of us who know Alex know he’s funny, put him in a world where he can say whatever he wants and I am the only person who can understand and his funniness reaches a new, often inappropriate level.

8. 1.5 pounds of fresh squid for 2 bucks... delicious

9. Baked pasta with mozzarella and parmesan cheese, salad and homemade crutons

10. Raining inside my house... one day when the wind was blowing horizontally during a rainstorm it literally was raining inside the room. Alex was over smiling about it as he stood in the middle of the room yelling, ‘look its raining on me over here, and over here too!’

11. ‘I am not even sure what I like about it here but I am so happy’ Alex, just living the life.

12. New Pillows.... the old ones were moldy and smelt weird

13. Bus drivers knowing we live in Tabuga, not yelling Canoa at us just because we’re white

14. Cockroach eating Styrofoam wall decoration, the noise woke us up and freaked us out... another reason for yet another middle of the night conversation

15. ‘I kind of want to hold your hand and skip, we just get along so well’ Alex regressing to our childhood

16. I have an amazing ability to speak mute... even from far away

17. Getting seen around Ecuador on this weird MTV like TV show where Alex was grinding with the plastic surgery gone overboard reporter.

18. Ryan Fitzgerald

19. Strawberry oatmeal pancakes

20. Rushing to the shower after work –one friend exclaims this shower is so nice, because it always has water

21. Gusuentight – had no idea it was German

22. Getting a beer at the local store, just hanging out and making the wife laugh her witch laugh

23. Hanging out in the jungle with the indigenous group, Waoroni, Alex pulling naked kids into a moving truck and me learning how to say bad words in Wao, the crazy sounding language

24. Bigote, the cook at the reserve and our really good friend. He looks out for us, we look out for him, we really love him... bigote means mustache in Spanish.

25. Oversmiling when we get home after a day of work, a weekend away or a week in the jungle, just because we are home, in Tabuga